


certain obscure things

by Springsteen



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7489800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Springsteen/pseuds/Springsteen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>two different prompt fills from the same anon; chapter one is "One of them wakes up one morning and is able to read the other's mind" and chapter two is "They both dream of memories, but it's each other's memories instead of their own"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i am not nor are you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaZeli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaZeli/gifts).



> like it says in the summary, these are actually two separate short fics, but I really wanted to post them together because I think they fit well together. to me it feels like two different universes, both pushing these two characters together. huge thanks to the anon who sent me these prompts, because they were hugely fun to write. both the fic and the chapter titles are from pablo neruda's [sonnet 17](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49236):
> 
> I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,  
> except in this form in which I am not nor are you,  
> so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,  
> so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Dex woke up with a headache. It wasn’t anything terrible, just a slight pressure between his temples. He didn’t really think anything of it as he got out of bed and dragged himself down to Faber for morning skate. When he walked into the building, past the few students around the front desk, there was a buzzing in his head like a hive of bees. Dex ignored it and kept walking, back into the locker room.

The buzzing intensified, a loud chatter in his head that he realized was _voices_. Dozens of them, all talking over one another, impossible to distinguish. He shook his head, trying to clear it with no success.

“Morning, Dex!” Chowder said happily. “Wow, I am so tired, Farmer and I stayed up super late last night watching _Scandal_ \- that show is so crazy! I can never even guess what’s gonna happen next! I really shouldn’t have done that because I knew we had morning skate at six and now I’m gonna fall asleep in the goal and get hit in the face or fall over and oh Murray is gonna be so annoyed.”

“Whoa, C, slow down,” Dex said, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’re weirdly talkative this morning.”

Chowder looked at him curiously. “All I said was good morning,” he said slowly. “Oh my god did I say all that about _Scandal_ out loud that would be so weird I’m pretty sure I was just thinking it…”

Quickly, Dex turned away from Chowder, hands at his temples. He took slow, deep breaths and tried to listen to the voices still chattering in his head, trying to concentrate on them individually. Now that he’d heard Chowder, he could pick out the thread of his thoughts running _in Dex’s brain_. 

He got ready for practice as fast as he possibly could, leaving the locker room for the relative calm of the ice. He was the first one out there, skating around the rink in easy circles to warm up. So he could hear people’s thoughts, apparently. This was fine. Really, just great. He had a hard enough time sorting through his own mind, now he had to contend with everyone within a reasonable distance, too. 

Once the rest of the team hit the ice, the noise level in his head rose, a crescendo of scattered thoughts from twenty different sources. He hoped the voices would quiet down once they started practice, that the team as a whole would concentrate, narrowing the scattered directions of their thoughts. He was very wrong - it made it worse. 

As soon as the puck hit the ice, twenty voices started clamoring in his head. He didn’t know what he himself was thinking - he couldn’t focus at all, had no idea where the puck was, wasn’t even sure where _he_ was at the moment. There was no escaping the shouted thoughts of the rest of his team, his headache worsening by the second. Dex closed his eyes and crumpled to the ice.

When Dex opened his eyes again, he saw Nursey staring back at him from three inches away. Panic spiked through him, but it took him a few seconds to remember why. _Oh holy fuck I was so scared I’d never see those eyes again, that was fucking terrifying, I cannot even imagine something like this happening in a game oh my god oh my god oh my-_

“No,” Dex yelled, scrambling away from Nursey. He backed straight into Ransom and knew instantly he’d made a mistake. _This is like freshman year Bitty all over again, only no one even touched him. Man, I get being afraid of checking but bro just went down. Wonder if it’s anything serious? Some kind of weird breakdown, maybe a muscle spasm, hope he doesn’t need to go to the hospital._ Dex wrenched himself away from Ransom and curled in on himself as much as he could in the middle of the ice with half the team clustered around him.

“Poindexter,” Hall said gently, crouched next to Nursey. Dex saw his lips moving, knew he was actually speaking to him. “Are you okay?”

Dex considered saying he was fine, getting up, and continuing with practice. He thought about going on with his day hearing the thoughts of every single person he saw, and shuddered. “Migraine,” he gritted out.

“Do you need to see a doctor?” Hall asked. 

Dex shook his head. “I just need to sleep it off, I think.” Maybe he was still dreaming, and he’d wake up in his own bed in a few seconds only for this whole experience to fade from memory as he blinked sleep from his eyes.

“Do you need someone to walk you back to your dorm?” During Dex’s few seconds of hesitation, Coach Hall looked at Nursey, who nodded. Maybe everyone had woken up with inexplicable psychic powers today, and he was the only one crushed under their weight. “Nurse, make sure Poindexter gets back to his room in one piece. Tomorrow we’ll run your new plays.”

“I’m fine,” Dex said quickly. “I can walk myself back.” The last thing he wanted was to be alone with Nursey right now.

Hall shook his head. “Hit the showers, you two. We want all of you in top shape for the game next week.” Dex accepted defeat, skating back toward the locker rooms. At least the voices in his head quieted as he retreated, though that was both a blessing and a curse. All the voices faded except for one: Nursey’s.

Desperate to distract himself, Dex forced himself to recall fact after fact from the AP US Government class he’d taken his senior year of high school. _When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…_

He took off his jersey, yanking the rest of his equipment off as fast as he could. Since he’d only been on the ice for ten minutes, he didn’t even bother with the showers. Mechanically, he pulled his clothes back on, shoving everything else back into his cubby. He mentally recited every historical document he could think of, but it still wasn’t enough to block out Nursey’s thoughts.

He was a little annoyed to be missing practice, but mostly worried about Dex, worried about saying anything in the quiet locker room for fear that it would make his headache worse. Dex would have been surprised by his concern if he’d learned of it in any kind of normal way. He threw his bag over his shoulder and turned to leave, without a word. Nursey and his loud thoughts followed him out the door.

_Is he too weak to walk? Should I put my arm around him? This might be the only time I can do that and not get punched for it, maybe I should just go for it. That would be like taking advantage of him, though, and I can’t do that. He looks fine - at least, he’s walking fine. I hope he’s okay, my game’s not the same without him. Who am I kidding, I’m not the same without him._

Dex put his hands over his ears, like that would stop this bizarre telepathy. Nursey’s hand brushed tentatively across his back. The static of his thoughts grew louder because of the contact, a crescendo of worry that receded when Nursey pulled his hand away. “Are you okay?” he asked, voice low and soothing. Dex didn’t look at him - if he wasn’t looking directly at someone, their thoughts were a little more muffled. 

“I’ll be fine,” Dex said, hoping it was true. He walked into his dorm, bracing himself for an onslaught of thoughts in his head. He closed his eyes.

“Dude, no offense, but you don’t look fine,” Nursey said, following him down a hall and then up two flights of stairs. “You kind of look, like, the opposite of fine.” _It’s so awful to see him like this and there’s literally nothing I can do like how do you take away headaches goddamn he looks like he’s in so much pain that must be so awful I just want to hold him and take it all away, make him feel better, if only he’d let me, if only he’d want me to_. 

“Well it’s not like there’s anything you can do,” Dex said, unlocking his room and walking inside, not bothering to turn on the lights. He was so thankful for his single room, thankful for all the walls and doors that separated him from everyone else in the building, their thoughts nothing but a quiet buzz in the back of his mind. If he’d woken up with this ability, maybe he could go back to sleep and it would disappear. He threw himself on his bed and dragged a pillow over his head.

“Do you need any painkillers? Or some water?” 

Now that he wasn’t looking at Nursey, Dex had no idea if he was actually speaking or if he was still hearing his thoughts. “No,” Dex mumbled into his sheets. If Nursey hadn’t actually asked him anything, Dex’s mumbling could be interpreted as almost anything.

“Are you sure?” The mattress creaked when Nursey sat down on the edge of it, terrifyingly close to Dex’s side. _He looks like he could use some serious painkillers. I hate that he’s so stubborn all the time, who the fuck wants to suffer in silence all the time and damnit, why do I care so much_?

“’m not that stubborn,” Dex mumbled. 

The mattress creaked again when Nursey jumped up. “What did you say?” he asked, when Dex realized his mistake. _What the hell is happening did that really just happen holy shit what the fuck is this Harry Potter bullshit-_

“Don’t you dare make a Ron Weasley joke,” Dex said. He was never leaving his room again. It probably would be safest if he didn’t even take the pillow off his head. Maybe Nursey would leave on his own, would chalk it up to Dex’s migraine and early morning weirdness.

“Dude,” Nursey breathed. “What’s going on?” _Is Dex one of the X-Men? Did he get bitten by a radioactive spider? Or is this an alien replica of Dex they left behind when they abducted the real Dex to experiment on the human race?_

Despite his headache, Dex laughed. “What have you been smoking?”

Nursey yanked the pillow away from Dex’s head. “How are - Can you read my mind?”

Dex rolled over. It would be stupid to lie to Nursey, after the way he’d been responding to his thoughts. _Would I make it weird if I kissed his forehead? Oh shit it’s already weird if he can read my mind. DEX CAN YOU HEAR THIS WHAT AM I THINKING RIGHT NOW?_

“You would be the asshole who actually thinks ‘what am I thinking’,” Dex said. Nursey stared at him. “It’s not just you, it’s anybody around me.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Nursey said. “Is that why you collapsed at practice?” Dex nodded. “Have you heard anything good?”

Dex frowned. “Are you asking me if I picked up any good gossip?” he asked incredulously. Nursey nodded. “My head feels like it’s gonna explode. I literally woke up this morning and heard a thousand voices in my head. I still don’t know if I’m going insane. You seriously think I was focused enough to pick up on gossip?”

Nursey looked away. “Okay, that was a dumb thing to ask,” he admitted. “You can really tell what I’m thinking?” _To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?_

Though he had never admitted to it, Dex thought Nursey’s voice was calming. He hadn’t realized it until they stopped arguing - no one was calm when they were throwing insults and shouting at you, but one day, sitting in the living room of the Haus with Chowder, listening to Nursey mumble lines of poetry and phrases of essays to himself, Dex had realized he liked the sound of his voice. It was musical without being distracting, slow and constant like the sound of the tide, of ocean waves.

“Shakespeare,” Dex said sleepily. Nursey smiled sheepishly and sat back down on Dex’s bed, in the same spot near his side. “You’re so dramatic.”

“I figured you’d rather hear that than, like, random shit,” Nursey said. “I’m surprised you’re not totally freaking out.”

“Trust me, I am freaking out,” Dex said. “In my own head, where no one can hear me, but I can hear everyone else who even looks at me. One glance and I can hear every little thought, whether I want to or not-”

“Hey, yo, chill,” Nursey said, settling his hand on Dex’s chest. His own thoughts were drowned out by Nursey’s. _To die: to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. Yeah, close your eyes, keep breathing, you’re fine, I’m right here. Goddamnit I want to kiss you so bad._

“So do it,” Dex said, barely a whisper in the quiet room. Nursey blinked several times, like he’d forgotten Dex could hear his thoughts, or his thoughts had run away from him. Dex reached up to him. The instant his fingers brushed Nursey’s face, a thousand thoughts exploded in his mind, faster than he could even process them. When Nursey leaned down and brushed his lips against Dex’s, it was like a firecracker went off inside his head, bursts of happiness and desire and pleasure and, at the end of it all, one single thought shared by both of them: _finally_. 

He pulled Nursey closer to him, not caring that as he did he heard even more of his thoughts, a cracked mirror held up to himself: _so hot holy hell I cannot believe I’ve waited this long to kiss you oh my god don’t take your hands off me I could kiss you forever_

Dex kissed Nursey again, a lingering press of lips that turned hot and filthy faster than Dex expected. He pulled back. Nursey beamed at him, catching his breath. “You’re so hot,” he said, an echo of his thoughts a half-second after they flickered through Dex’s head. 

Dex blushed. “Thanks,” he said. “So are you - I mean - I could kiss you forever, but I really do want to sleep. I woke up this morning with the whole campus in my head, I’m hoping if I go back to sleep, this whole thing will go away.”

“You don’t like me in your head?” Nursey asked.

Dex rolled his eyes. “For once, you’re not the problem. Hearing everyone’s thoughts all day is pretty overwhelming.”

“Okay.” Nursey settled down next to him, curled into Dex’s side. Once again, Dex focused on Nursey’s thoughts as he drifted off: _To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream…_

Dex woke up to the late afternoon sun streaming through the window, Nursey still curled up next to him, and nothing in his head but his own thoughts. They’d both missed all their classes that day, but Dex couldn’t bring himself to care. Smiling, he brushed his fingers through Nursey’s hair. Nursey stretched, his arm snaking across Dex’s chest, before he opened his eyes. 

“What am I thinking?” he asked Dex.

Dex shrugged, a huge smile on his face. “I have no idea,” Dex said. “It’s really great.”

Nursey pushed himself up onto his elbows to look at him. “I was thinking I should kiss you again,” he said.

“Yeah? I was thinking the same thing,” Dex said, his hands on Nursey’s jaw to pull him in for a kiss. Nursey slid his legs between Dex’s and kissed him back. Dex didn’t have to read minds to know how happy he was; in that moment, they were both lost in each other.


	2. your eyes close with my dreams

Most nights, Dex didn’t remember his dreams. He stayed up late and woke up early, always studying or working, always tired. Sometimes he remembered bits and pieces of his dream, the last ten seconds or so before he woke up, a disjointed conclusion he would forget before breakfast anyways. Last night had been different.

Dex had dreamed of a lake, surrounded by trees, mountains off in the distance. The sun glittered off the water, placid and still like the ocean never was. The ground sloped down to meet the lake, a narrow dirt trail twisting between rocks and shaggy pine trees to a wooden dock that stretched out into the water. He didn’t know how he knew, but in this dream he was a child again, maybe ten years old.

In his dream, he ran down the path, slipping and stumbling over loose dirt and pebbles all the way down to the dock. He kicked off his shoes and jumped into the water, letting himself sink before kicking upwards again. When his head broke the surface, it felt like freedom.

Dex woke up smiling.

He stretched, rolling his shoulders as he walked down to the hall bathroom. He went through his whole morning routine, pulled a sweatshirt over his head and shaking out his hair as he walked out the door for practice. Like every morning they had practice, he stopped two floors down and knocked on Nursey’s door. 

“Mmnhhhrrmmmmm,” Nursey said when he opened the door, hood pulled up over his head. He silently followed Dex out into the hallway and down the stairs, looking like he was still half asleep.

“I had the weirdest dream last night,” Dex said, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket once they got outside. “I was running down this path in the middle of the woods, in the mountains.”

Nursey blinked at him. “And?” he asked, dragging his feet as he walked beside Dex. No wonder he tripped over everything. Dex grabbed his sleeve and pulled him around the uneven bumps in the sidewalk, heaved from tree roots growing beneath it, that Nursey had tripped on three days in a row before Dex realized he was too tired to notice, most mornings.

Dex shrugged. “I jumped into a lake. I was really happy, in the dream.”

Nursey pulled his arm free of Dex’s loose grip to scratch his jaw with the back of his hand **.** “Sounds like the summer camp I went to when I was a kid,” he said. “I loved it.”

Dex said nothing, holding open the door of Faber for him. Of course Nursey was one of those kids who went to summer camp every summer for years. Dex had never gone to summer camp, not like the one in his dream. Instead, he has memories of summers spent with his brothers at the beach, of running around the neighborhood with cousins and neighbors, and then later, of working on his uncle’s lobster boat. 

“Dude,” Nursey said, jolting Dex out of his thoughts. He still stood outside Faber, holding the door wide open. Nursey stood inside, staring at him. “Earth to Poindexter. Anybody in there?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Dex said, letting the door close behind him as he followed Nursey through to the locker room. He pulled his gear on, laced up his skates, and by the time he was out on the ice running drills, he’d all but forgotten about his dream. 

Still, he couldn’t stop smiling all day. 

* * *

Nursey has always had a vivid imagination. It’s why he loved to write - so he could get some of those words out of his head, thin the explosion of images and ideas constantly whirling through his mind. He dreamt often, of all sorts of random situations. He dreamt of strangers whose faces he’d only glanced in passing on subway platforms. He dreamt of distant cousins, of schoolmates from Andover, of flying and of monsters and of losing his teeth. His dreams were wild and untamed and just that - dreams. He’s dreamt of being in the Haus and turning a corner and being in his parents’ brownstone on the Upper West Side, one of Bitty’s pies cooling on the counter while Coach Turner from Andover wrote hockey plays on the refrigerator. He never expected his dreams to make any sort of sense; they’d always followed their own logic.

He climbed the steps up to the bus, tossed his bag into the overhead storage, and sat down next to Dex, who had already settled in for their trip to RPI, in upstate New York. Last year, Nursey and Dex had sat together on roadies initially to annoy each other, and then out of superstition. Now, Nursey was totally at ease around Dex. It was so easy for him to sit down, and, about ten minutes after the bus had started moving, fall asleep with his head on Dex’s shoulder. Just like every other roadie, they’d barely left Samwell before Nursey fell asleep, lulled by the movement and the chatter of his teammates around him. 

While Nursey slept, he dreamt of a thousand shades of blue. For a second, he thought of a dance club, of flashing lights and disco balls, before his dream self realized he was standing on a boat and looking out at the ocean, at the rays of sunlight slanting down and bouncing off the silver-mirror surface of the waves. There wasn’t a single cloud in the brilliantly blue sky. He leaned over the ship’s railing and watched the waves splash against the hull, looked out at the point where the sky met the horizon, a distant, blurred line of choppy waves far from land. The boat pitched and rocked on the waves and Nursey jolted awake to the bus driving over bumps in the road, jostling him where he was slouched against Dex’s side. 

Dex had his headphones in his ears and his eyes were unfocused, looking out the window at the dense forest rolling past them. “Go back to sleep,” Dex said, gaze still fixed out the window. “I’ll wake you up when we stop.” Nursey wondered if he was already dreaming when he felt Dex’s hand settle warmly on his leg, just above his knee. He shuffled in his seat, sitting up a little straighter so he could rest his head on Dex’s shoulder, his hand loosely covering Dex’s wrist. Once again, he fell asleep in minutes.

Nursey had dreamt of flying plenty of times - like a bird, arms spread wide as he soared through the clouds. In this dream, he thought he was flying, but he realized his hands were reaching, body stretching as he pulled himself up through a tree. 

“You’ll never make it!” someone yelled at him from the ground. In the dream, Nursey looked down to see a boy with red-brown hair looking up at him, arms crossed over his chest. Nursey couldn’t have been more than six or eight feet off the ground, only a few branches up in the tree. “Get back down here!”

“No way!” Nursey yelled. “I can totally do this!” Nursey climbed higher and higher, falling into an easy rhythm as his hands found the next branches, pulling himself up. The next time he looked down, he could hardly see the ground through the leaves. “Hey!” he yelled to the boy on the ground. “I told you I could do it!”

“Yeah, great,” the boy yelled back. “Now get back down here!” Nursey ignored him, clinging to the branches around him and trying to look out through the leaves, looking out at a sunlit stretch of grass, maybe a park, and beyond that, at glimmering water in the distance. The wind rustled through the leaves, blowing gently through Nursey’s hair, carrying the salty smell of the ocean. “Come on, we gotta be home for dinner soon!” the boy on the ground yelled. 

“Okay, fine,” Nursey said, carefully lowering himself down the tree, one branch at a time. He got most of the way down, but as he climbed down through the lower branches, his hand slipped and he fell out of the tree, straight down to the grass below.

Nursey woke on the bus with a gasp, jumping in his seat just as the bus turned off the highway onto a two-lane road and stopped at a traffic light. His whole body was tense, braced for an impact that never happened. 

“Are you okay?” Dex asked. When he woke, Nursey had clenched his fingers around Dex’s wrist, his hand still resting warmly on Nursey’s thigh. Dex looked down at Nursey’s grip on his arm before looking back up at Nursey.

“Yeah,” Nursey said slowly. “Weirdly intense dream. I was climbing this tree and it was so peaceful and beautiful, until I fell. In the dream, duh, but…” He moved his hand into his own lap, suddenly self-conscious about falling asleep on Dex even though he did the same thing on almost every roadie. 

“Gonna write a poem about it?” Dex chirped.

“Pfft, no,” Nursey said, though he wasn’t sure. There certainly had been a dreamlike poetry in the quiet clutch of greenery, the lazy swish of the leaves and the gamble with gravity, balanced on a branch swaying in the breeze seconds before the fall. He looked over at Dex. Metaphors about falling were too easy, in this scenario. “What does it mean when you fall in your dreams?” he asked.

“What?” Dex said, taking his headphones out of his ears. As he moved, a thick scar on his arm caught the light. Nursey had noticed it before, but he’d never really asked about it - a long line of skin, very pale and freckle-free, puckered and even, like there had once been stitches knitting his skin back together. 

“You know,” Nursey said, leaning back in the seat as he slowly relaxed again. “Like, when you dream about your teeth falling out, it means you’re stressed. Or if you dream about birds, they represent hope.” 

Dex stared at him. “What?” he said again.

“Haven’t you ever wondered what your dreams mean?” Dex shook his head. “It’s symbolism, dude. I mean, a lot of different people have different interpretations of dreams-”

“Like Freud,” Dex said. Dex has always confused him, staying quiet for a minute only to jump full-force into conversations once he has a point to make. “Why am I not surprised you psychoanalysed yourself.”

“I didn’t,” Nursey said. “I just got weirded out when I had the same dream about flying through New York and then falling and dying for like, a week straight, right before I started Andover.”

“Fear of change?” Dex suggested.

Nursey elbowed him in the side. Dex shoved him in retaliation, their hands falling together in the space between their legs. “Good guess, Siggie,” he said. “Come on, man, I’m sure you’ve researched some super whack shit. Don’t tell me.” He held up his hand when Dex made a face, brow wrinkling like he was about to complain. “The history of lobster traps - no, wait, too obvious. Probably some freaky urban legends. You know a lot about the Loch Ness Monster, huh, Dex?” He snapped his fingers. “Aliens. Fuckin’ aliens, yeah, Dexy?”

Dex rolled his eyes. “It would be stupid to think we’re the only living things in the entire universe,” he said, “but-”

“Aha!” Nursey shouted. “Dex believes in aliens!”

“Hell yeah!” Holster yelled, popping up over the back of his seat. “The truth is out there, bro!”

“Are you serious,” Ransom said as he turned to look at Holster, who was grinning at Dex. “Sure, there’s the potential for life out there in, like, bacterial form, but that _does not mean Star Wars is real, Holster_. Come on, bro, just look at the facts-”

“A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Naboo was under an attack,” Holster sang over Ransom’s words.

“Oh, God, not again,” Bitty mumbled.

“Look what you started,” Dex said, glaring sideways at Nursey.

“I didn’t do anything,” Nursey said. “You totally took us to Area 51, dude.”

Dex sighed through his nose and put his headphones back in his ears. Nursey couldn’t really blame him. Holster had a decent singing voice, but he really didn’t want to listen to him sing Weird Al all the way to Troy. He snagged one of Dex’s headphones and put it in his own ear, leaning closer to Dex. Even his dad rock was better than this, and Nursey wasn’t really surprised to hear the Beatles. Still, he settled against Dex’s side and hummed along to the music for the rest of the trip.

_Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting…_

* * *

The game against RPI was long and brutal. They only just managed to scrape a goal near the end of OT, thanks to luck more than anything else. Still, Wicks managed to find the back of the net, and a goal was a goal. By the time they got back to their hotel after a boisterous dinner, all of them were too tired to do anything but take the room keys Lardo passed out and head up to their rooms. Dex dropped his bag on the floor, pulled back the blankets on one of the twin beds, and fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He woke the next morning with no memory of his dreams the night before, but a melody he knew he’d never heard looped through his head over and over. He hummed it as he brushed his teeth and pulled on sweatpants and a t-shirt to wear for the ride back to Samwell. He was still humming it when Nursey walked out of the bathroom, wearing the flannel pants he’d slept in and wiping his face with a towel.

“That… what are you singing?” he asked slowly, leaning closer to Dex, who stopped humming when Nursey started talking. 

“I don’t know,” Dex said. “I woke up with it in my head, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”

“Sing it again,” Nursey commanded, glaring at him. Dex faltered, still tired and confused by how weirded out Nursey was by a random song. He started humming again, and after a few seconds Nursey sang along. “Arrorró mi niño, arrorró mi sol, arrorró pedazo de mi corazón.”

Dex stopped, staring at Nursey. “I have never heard that before in my life,” he said. “How did that end up in my head?”

Nursey shook his head. “It’s a lullaby. My mama sang it to me when I was a baby. It’s probably my first memory.”

“There’s no way you can remember that if it happened when you were a baby,” Dex said, frowning.

Nursey rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point,” he said. “How weird is it that we’ve been dreaming each other’s memories?”

“What?” Dex asked. It was way too early for him to wrap his brain around something this impossible. “That’s not happening, Nursey, it’s not _possible_.”

Nursey grabbed his arm, twisting it so the pale line of a scar he’d had since he was a kid shone dully in the light. “How did you get this scar?” he asked.

“Surgery,” Dex explained. “I fell climbing a tree…” He trailed off, remembering Nursey jolting awake on the bus yesterday, saying he’d had a strangely intense dream about falling out of a tree. He thought of the dream he’d had weeks ago, of a lake in the middle of the woods, and of Nursey saying it sounded like the summer camp he’d gone to as a kid. “What the _fuck_ ,” he said. “What the fuck is happening?”

Nursey shrugged. “Maybe we were cursed,” he suggested. “Or maybe it’s some kind of mental bond.” He stared intently at Dex, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head.

“What the hell are you doing,” Dex said, just to break the silence that had fallen.

“Trying to communicate telepathically,” he said, smirking. “Guess it didn’t work.”

“Of course it didn’t work,” Dex said, exasperated. “This isn’t Star Trek.” He tried to gesture to emphasize his point, but Nursey’s hand was still around his wrist, holding him still. He’d been rubbing his thumb back and forth across his arm this whole time, just below his scar. He watched the movement, transfixed. Logically, he knew that what was happening to them didn’t make any sense, just like he knew that they had to leave their room soon if they wanted to get breakfast before getting back on the bus. He should have said something about that, tried to steer his life back towards normalcy, but instead he asked, “What does it mean? The song - it’s Spanish, right?”

Nursey nodded. “It’s a lullaby. _Arrorró_ is just, uh. Nonsense, I guess. It doesn’t mean anything. Like ‘rock-a-bye baby,’ or whatever.” He bit his lip, frowning in concentration. “Sleep, my baby, sleep, my sun, sleep, piece of my heart.”

“Oh,” Dex said. He didn’t know what he expected. He’d taken two years of French in high school and barely retained any of it. Numbers had always been easy for him to understand; foreign languages seemed entirely beyond his comprehension. He knew Nursey spoke Spanish, had heard him talk to his abuela on the phone a few times, had seen him reading books of Spanish poetry almost as often as English ones. At the moment, Dex couldn’t describe what he was feeling with any of the words he knew, and even if he spoke all the languages in the world he still didn’t think any words could come close to this feeling. He cleared his throat, twisting his arm out of Nursey’s grip. “We should probably get going,” he said.

“Wait,” Nursey said, reaching out for him again. Dex turned back to him and saw Nursey standing much closer than he had been, hands gentle on Dex’s hips as he leaned in and kissed him, soft and chaste. Dex was so shocked he didn’t move, completely convinced he was still dreaming. “Shit,” Nursey whispered when he pulled back, letting his hands fall away from Dex’s hips, and that was the last thing Dex wanted. 

Dex reached out for Nursey, swaying into him and sending both of them stumbling into one of the beds. Dex kissed his lips, his cheeks, his nose, every part of him he could reach as Nursey laughed, low and happy. “Am I still sleeping?” he asked, catching Dex’s lips in another kiss.

“If you are, we’re having the same dream,” Dex said breathlessly, both hands on Nursey’s bare shoulders. 

Nursey wrapped his arms around Dex’s waist, grinning at him. “Wouldn’t be the weirdest dream we’ve had,” he said. He leaned in and kissed Dex again. Dex let himself get lost in it, let himself forget the world outside of Nursey’s arms, his lips, his body. 

“We’re gonna miss the bus,” Dex finally mumbled between kisses.

“I don’t care,” Nursey said. “I literally could not care less.”

“Dude, we kinda need to get back to Samwell,” Dex said, though he wasn’t sure how much of that Nursey understood. He’d said it with his lips brushing Nursey’s stubbled jaw. 

“Nah,” Nursey said. “We’ll take an Uber.”

Dex laughed, finally pulling away enough to find his shoes, picking up his bag. “We’re not taking a four-hour Uber trip. Come on.” He threw a hoodie at Nursey, only realizing after Nursey pulled it on that it was his own, heart thudding at the sight of Nursey in his clothes. He nudged Nursey towards his bag, and they made it down to the bus a few minutes before they left. 

They’d only been on the road for ten minutes when Nursey fell asleep, his head on Dex’s shoulder, Dex’s arm wrapped around him. Dex’s hand was curled around Nursey’s, an anchor through the strange storms of his dreams. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! feel free to say hey at my [tumblr](http://jayzimmboni.tumblr.com).


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